Kurt Steven Angle (born December 9, 1968) is an American retired professional wrestler and former amateur wrestler. He is a sports analyst for Real American Freestyle. He first earned recognition for winning a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Summer Olympics despite competing with a broken neck, and achieved wider fame and recognition for his tenures in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) from 1998 to 2006, and 2017 to 2019, and in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) from 2006 to 2016.
Angle won numerous accolades while at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, including being a two-time NCAA Division I Wrestling Champion in the Heavyweight division. After graduating, he won gold medals in freestyle wrestling at the 1995 World Wrestling Championships and 1996 Summer Olympics. He is one of four people to win the Junior Nationals, NCAA, World Championships, and the Olympics. In 2006, he was named by USA Wrestling as the greatest shoot wrestler of all time and as one of USA Wrestling's top 15 college wrestlers of all time. In 2016, he was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame.
Angle made his first appearance at a professional wrestling event in 1996, and signed with the WWF (now WWE) in 1998. Although he was never a fan of professional wrestling and previously had a negative opinion of it due to its scripted nature, he was noted for his natural aptitude for it; after training for only a few days, he had his debut match within the WWF's developmental system in August 1998 and had his first official WWF match in March 1999. After months of dark matches, Angle made his televised in-ring debut in November 1999. Within two months, he was holding the European and Intercontinental Championships simultaneously. Four months later, he won the 2000 King of the Ring tournament and began pursuing the WWF Championship, which he won in October and would go on to win a total of four times. He also became a one-time WCW Champion and one-time World Heavyweight Champion. He is the tenth professional wrestler to achieve the WWE Triple Crown and the fifth to achieve the WWE Grand Slam. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame's class of 2017.
After leaving WWE in 2006, Angle joined TNA, where he became a record six-time TNA World Heavyweight Champion (and the inaugural) and the second TNA Triple Crown winner, holding all three TNA championships simultaneously. He is also a two-time King of the Mountain. During his tenure with TNA, he also competed for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and the Inoki Genome Federation (IGF), winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship once. In 2013, he was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame. He is the second wrestler, after Sting, to be inducted into both the WWE and TNA Halls of Fame.
Angle has won over 21 professional wrestling championships and is an overall 13-time world champion. He is the only wrestler to have won the WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship, WCW Championship, TNA World Heavyweight Championship, IWGP Heavyweight Championship, and an NCAA Wrestling Championship. He is also the first person to hold both the WWE and TNA Triple Crowns. He has headlined numerous pay-per-view events, including WrestleMania XIX and Bound for Glory on three occasions (in 2007, 2010, and 2011), the flagship events of WWE and TNA, respectively. In 2004, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter inducted Angle into its Hall of Fame and later named him "Wrestler of the Decade" for the 2000s. Fellow professional wrestler John Cena called Angle "without question the most gifted all-around performer we have ever had step into a ring" and said "there will never be another like him".
Kurt Steven Angle was born in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, on December 9, 1968, the son of Jackie and David Angle. He is of Welsh, German, Irish, Polish and Lithuanian descent. He has four older brothers named David, Mark, John, and Eric, the latter of whom is also a wrestler; his older sister, Le'Anne, died at the age of 43 in 2003. He attended Clarion University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a degree in education in 1993. His father was a crane operator who died in a construction accident while working on Fifth Avenue Place when Angle was 16. Angle dedicated both his career and his autobiography to his father. He stated in an interview that, following his father's death, he regarded his wrestling coach David Schultz as a paternal figure. While training Angle, Schultz was murdered in January 1996 by John Eleuthère du Pont, the sponsor of Schultz's team of Olympic prospectives. Angle's mother died of cancer in 2015.
Kurt Angle started amateur wrestling at the age of seven. He attended Mt. Lebanon High School, where he won varsity letters in football, as an All-State linebacker, and wrestling. He was undefeated on the freshman wrestling team and qualified for the state wrestling tournament his sophomore year. Angle placed third at the state wrestling tournament as a junior and was the 1987 Pennsylvania Class AAA wrestling state champion as a senior.
Upon graduating from high school, Angle attended Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he continued to wrestle at the amateur level. He was a two-time National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I champion, national runner-up in 1991, and a three-time NCAA Division I All-American. In addition, Angle was the 1987 USA Junior Freestyle champion, a two-time USA Senior Freestyle champion, and the 1988 USA International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles Junior World Freestyle champion.
After graduating from college, Angle continued to wrestle, though he did have an unsuccessful tryout with the Pittsburgh Steelers at running back, despite not playing football in college. In 1995, he won a gold medal at the FILA Wrestling World Championships in Atlanta, Georgia. Following this victory, Angle began preparing for the 1996 Summer Olympics (also in Atlanta) under Dave Schultz at the Pennsylvanian Foxcatcher Club, training between eight and ten hours a day. In January 1996, not long after Angle began training at the club, Schultz was murdered by John Eleuthère du Pont, the sponsor of Schultz's team of Olympic prospectives. As a result, Angle quit du Pont's team, searched for new sponsors, and joined the Dave Schultz Wrestling Club in Schultz's memory.
Angle faced further hardships while taking part in the 1996 Olympic Trials, when he suffered a severe neck injury, fracturing two of his cervical vertebrae, herniating two discs, and pulling four muscles. Nonetheless, Angle won the trials and then spent the subsequent five months resting and rehabilitating. By the Olympics, Angle was able to compete, albeit with several pain-reducing injections in his neck. In the fall of 1996, Angle stated that he temporarily became addicted to the analgesic Vicodin after injuring his neck. He won his gold medal in the heavyweight (90–100 kg; 198–220 lb) weight class despite his injury, defeating several competitors including Mongolian Dolgorsürengiin Sumyaabazar, Cuban Wilfredo Morales, Ukrainian Sagid Murtazaliev, and others. Angle won four close matches to earn his spot in the gold-medal finals.
In 2006, Angle was named the greatest shoot wrestler of all time by USA Wrestling, as well as one of the top 15 college wrestlers. In April 2011, Angle revealed that he was planning a comeback to amateur wrestling for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He later announced he was unable to make the trials for the national team due to a knee injury, though he held an honorary title as team manager. In 2016, Angle was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame for his amateur wrestling accomplishments.
Extreme Championship Wrestling (1996)
On October 26, 1996, Angle was convinced by fellow Pittsburgh native Shane Douglas to attend the Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) event High Incident. He gave an in-ring interview and provided guest commentary during a match between Taz and Little Guido, but left the building after Raven attached Sandman to a cross using barbed wire. Angle, shocked by the controversial imagery and afraid that his career prospects were going to be damaged if he was associated with the incident, threatened to sue ECW owner Paul Heyman if he was shown on television in the same broadcast as the stunt.